At the end of August, Bead It in downtown Concord will shut its doors for good unless a buyer takes over.
“We’ve had a great run,” owner Chris Nordlund said on Thursday, who is currently running two businesses and is about to lose her Bead It co-founder, Donna Nordlund.
“My mother’s retiring. When we first opened 15 years ago, she said, ‘I’ll give you 10 years’ and so she gave me more than that. So I can’t fault her for that,” Chris said.
The mother-daughter team have been running the bead store together since 2003, but Chris Nordlund is also part of an unrelated venture in Epsom called Flip Tool & Equipment Sales, which opened in May.
Without Donna at the bead store, neither woman could see how they could keep Bead It going and made the hard decision to close, but they said they are grateful for the time they’ve had with their customers and the downtown community.
“Main Street was where we wanted to be, so we just feel very fortunate that we have been part of Main Street,” Donna said. :It’s special, it’s really special down here. We love it and we’re going to miss it. It’s one of those bittersweet things.”
Not all is lost yet for local beaders. The business is for sale.
“We have a couple people that are interested so we’re hoping that someone will buy it and be able to continue on,” said Chris.
“It’s really difficult to pick out your beads online. The reds are wrong. The shape is wrong. The size is wrong.”
But for now, the last day is set for August 31 and the Nordlunds have marked everything down 20 percent. Updates to the store’s status will be posted to their Facebook page.